Poliquin: Former U.S. boxing coach Tom Coulter heads to London to teach sweet science

Francis Gardler, 1992Former U.S. boxing coach Tom Coulter gives a few pointers during a workout at the Friends of Syracuse Boxing.

He left Monday for Wales where he’ll play the part of ring sage for 100-plus boxing pilgrims who will have traveled from continents near and far to absorb his thoughts on how best to slam fist into face.

And because Tom Coulter is nothing if not serious about the practice of throwing hands — and of filling the minds of those who do just that — he’ll devote all of his time across the pond to the business of dispatching wisdom.

“What else am I going to do?” he asked the other day while sitting in the booth of an Erie Boulevard breakfast joint. “Look at a building? I’ve been to every country in the world. Believe me, I’ve seen buildings. They all look the same to me.”

Well, then, Tom was asked, what do you plan to see of Wales?

“Nothing,” he said. “No, wait. I’ll see Cardiff University. That’s where we’ll be working out.”

Tom Coulter, our 81-year-old savant, may not be much into sightseeing. But he knows what he knows, and he knows the sweet science wherein noses shatter, ears ring and teeth can get swallowed. And because he does, he’s been appointed by the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) to be the head coach of the Road to London II Training Camp, which will take place in those 2½ weeks prior to the start of the London Olympiad that begins next month.

There will be 54 coaches and 51 fighters — not one of whom will be an American or a Russian, a Cuban or a Brit — joined by a small support staff. And each and every one will answer to Coulter, a member of our Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame, the former head coach of the U.S. Olympic Boxing Team and a fellow who takes guff, but only by the ounce.

“My main purpose is to control that camp so there isn’t any trouble,” he said. “Everybody will take orders from me. I’m the ramrod. If there are any issues, they’ll be run through me. If there are any problem guys, they won’t be around for long.”

Coulter, who won a school-record 10 varsity letters back in his glorious day at Syracuse University, plans to work a daily 18-hour shift (6 a.m.-12 midnight) from Thursay to July 24, making sure that each of his charges properly and proportionally runs, conditions, spars and eats.

And he’ll do so, more or less, in tongues.

It’s true that a lot of folks out there speak English, yes. But Coulter is sure to get that Turk or Mongolian or Croat who doesn’t ... and he’ll still need to point out that this hook is being telegraphed or that jaw is sure to get tagged. But having communicated with all types across those 60some years he’s spent in boxing, including nearly a half-century with the Syracuse Friends of Amateur Boxing Club, Tom will find a way.

“I’ll make everybody understand,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll talk slow.”

Coulter won’t talk, however, about USA Boxing, with which he’s been attached since 1966. Not at any speed, and certainly not chirpily. This, because he believes American amateur boxing, fairly abandoned and headed, he fears, for a medal-less Olympics, looks like a battered creature that’s about to become so much glue.

“We’re riding a dead horse,” Coulter said. “Amateur boxing in the United States is at its lowest level. There’s pro boxing and there’s MMA, which has taken over everything. That’s why I’d rather do something like this — go to Wales and be an educator.”

He’ll likely not engage many fighters — and there will be both men and women in camp — who will shortly thereafter assume the position on any medal stand in London. Indeed, Tom believes that under his gaze there will almost certainly be poor souls from poor nations whose focus will be divided between improving a jab and grabbing three squares a day.

No matter, though. There will be gloves and speed bags, rosin and spit buckets, hand wraps and jump ropes. And that means Tom Coulter — who’ll be paid $100 a day on top of his room, board and airfare — will soon enough find himself in the chummy corner of a Welsh heaven.

You know, even if he doesn’t wander from the Cardiff campus to mingle with the locals.

“You get 45 cents on the dollar with the pound,” Tom said. “What are you going to buy with that? A beer? That’d be some beer, wouldn’t it?”

Coulter may never know. After all, the gym will be open and he’ll have his Olympian duties to perform. Bellying up to the bar won’t be one of them.

Bud Poliquin’s columns and “To The Point” observations appear regularly on the pages of The Post-Standard newspaper. His work, including freshly-written on-line commentaries, can also be found virtually every day on syracuse.com. Additionally, Poliquin can be heard weekday mornings between 10 a.m.-12 noon on the sports-talk radio show, “Bud & The Manchild,” on The Score 1260-AM.